March 12, 2014 prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less) write about a character from any perspective who has to part with a prize possession.

Hunger by Janika

It had been 3 days since they had had a decent meal. Whatever little she earned from selling the vegetables was spent on her son’s treatment. He had typhoid. She had seen her daughters begging for food while she had taken her son to the hospital. The situation was very bleak and heartbreaking. The tears had long since dried up. She had exhausted her sources from where she could borrow money. She went to Lalaji’s shop – “Lala, I can give you what you want…I need money.” Lala smacked his lips and took her to the back of the shop.

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Stripped by Norah Colvin

She could hear them.

They didn’t think she could. She couldn’t talk. Why should she hear?

Caressing soft leather covers, fingering embossed lettering, she smelt the welcome of well-read pages and familiar characters.

In her mind.

While they annihilated shelves of prized possessions.

“No value here.”

“Dump them!”

Stripped of speech and movement, her twisted body dumped in her “favourite chair” for “minding” while they pillaged her collection: a lifetime in the making; seconds to destroy.

Laughter. Her eyes flickered. She knew those words by heart. She had written them –

Her last refuge.

Shit!

and that’s gone too!

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Selling His Soul by Diana Wenzel

I watch the man frantically search for the keys to his truck, with pants pocket linings turned out. He asks if we have seen his keys. Mom catches my eye with a knowing look, for she has hidden his keys.

The man’s days have always been filled with miles and miles of open road. Those are the keys to his kingdom, but now he cannot remember places. If he leaves, we cannot be sure he will find his way back.

I believe Dad might sell his soul to have his most prized possession in hand once more… his freedom.

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Flash Fiction Challenge –March 12 by Susan Zutautas

Looking at the older couple in the hawk shop brought tears to my eyes as I overheard them discussing what they could get for the woman’s diamond that she was toying with on her wedding ring finger.

From what I could gather they had just lost their home due to a fire, and had nowhere to go. Selling the diamond was their last hope for somewhere to stay that night and for a bite to eat.

In my heart I wanted to help but didn’t want to interfere, afraid that their pride would be shattered. Then I spoke up.

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Flash Fiction by Pete

Any other day a ride to the dump would have made my week. The mountains of treasures, stacked far and wide over the rolling hills. Sure, the smell could get thick, nearly visible during those muggy days of summer, but today my nose was too stuffy to smell anything. I wiped my face with the back of my hand, still unable to look back at my old friend, sitting on garbage bags in the bed of the truck. Dad put a gentle hand on my shoulder, his eyes soft.

“Son, I’ll get you another big wheel, this one’s caput.”

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Flash Fiction by Allison Mills:

The pages felt too real. One, two, three—forty-nine total. Three acts, a dozen scenes. At least eleven separate voices. Heavy pages, weighted with anticipation.

Jordan walked down the hall, nursing a paper cut. Gray walls, a university is an institution after all. Photographs line the corridor, evenly disrupting the monotony of office doors. Thin, black frames, like reading glasses. Here a distorted spiral of unidentified color. Children on a trampoline. An empty truck. A cowboy dumped in the dirt, looking away from the bull.

Jordan stopped; the door was closed. She slid her thesis under her adviser’s door.

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Small Sentiment by Jason Kennedy

I was twelve the first time my heart was torn in two. I had handed her a small bracelet – nothing special. It was painted gold and won from a 25 cent machine, but holding it then, it felt like she’d rejected all of me. She had shaken her head no, hiding a giggle behind her smile. Anger and pain swelled inside my small frame. I clenched my fist around the costume jewellery. I knew I would start to cry, so I took action. With all my might, I threw my heart on to the roof of the school.

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Flash Fiction by Paula Moyer

It hadn’t been easy, but Jean had done it. Gone were the diphthongs, the idioms, the quirky Oklahoma expressions. No more “meaner’n a striped snake,” “told him how the cow ate the cabbage.” Those colorful expressions were the easy ones to unload so that she could pass as a Minnesotan. But what to do about “y’all”? That sweet, handy second-person plural. It filled a hole in English that had been missing since the end of the Elizabethan age and the death of “ye”: “Ye are my people.” To fit in, “y’all” had to go. Keeping it exposed her. Sigh.

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A Prized Possession by Ruchira Khanna

Melissa finishes ironing the shirt and places it neatly in the pack of pressed clothes. Her eyes are moist as she enters his room with the bunch of formals.

Places them on his bed, and walks swiftly to her room.

Plops on her bed with a heavy heart and quivers while looking around those picture frames that make her walk back in memory lane when he held her hand to walk and climb steps. His first birthday and those gawky expressions that stole everybody’s heart, and today, this prized possession, of hers, is grown up and leaving for college.

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March 12 Response by Charli Mills:

Middle of a Monday rah-rah meeting before the store opens and my cell phone vibrates in my apron pocket. I’m not supposed to take calls at work, especially not during the weekly sales goal pitch. A manager glares at me as I hastily exit to the backroom among stacks of boxes.

“I’m calling about your listing,” says a voice.

I’m sick to answer these calls. Already 18 people want to buy my sea-kayak, the one I take out on Lake Superior. But when you have lymphoma, prized possessions pay for treatments.